The goal of this ongoing project is to understand the role of acquired patterns of processing social information in the development of behavioral competence and adjustment outcomes across childhood. Previous studies have found that adolescent outcomes can be predicted from early peer social preference and rejection, but the mechanisms of this relation are unknown. The proposed work is based on a model of social competence (Dodge, 1986) in which it is hypothesized that behavioral responding to a stimulus occurs as a function of a sequence of processing steps. These steps include encoding of cues, mental representation of those cues, response accessing, response evaluation, and response enactment. The model posits that patterns of processing at these steps are acquired through experience, they become stable over time, and they guide social behavior. In previous work, multi-item measures of processing patterns at each of these five steps were developed using videorecorded stimuli. Patterns were assessed within each of three major social domains (peer group entry, provocations by peers, and responding to an authority directive). These measures were administered to 259 first-,second-, and third-grade children and were found to yield internally consistent scores that are significantly related to measures of socially competent behavior within these domains and to social preference among peers (R's greater than .50). Five-year longitudinal follow-up of these subjects indicates that processing patterns remain stable over time. In the proposed project, the same subjects will be followed into adolescence (grades 6 through 12) in order to predict adjustment outcomes. New age-appropriate measures of processing patterns will be developed and administered to all subjects. Behavioral and adjustment outcomes will be assessed through ratings by selves, parents, peers, and teachers, and through archival school and juvenile court records. The hypotheses will be tested that processing patterns acquired in middle childhood become increasingly stable and differentiated across childhood. It is further hypothesized that these patterns act as personality-like characteristics that predict social behavior and maladjustment outcomes in adolescence. Finally, it is hypothesized that these processing patterns constitute the mechanism that accounts for the previously found predictability of adolescent outcomes from early peer social preference. This work will have important implications for the development of interventions with high-risk children.